Résumé The Caatinga biome is a semiarid region in Northeast Brazil that has been ignored in ecological and evolutionary research in broad scales, and at the same time it has a lack of biological conservation practices. In this way, this thesis evaluates spatial patterns of species richness for four terrestrial vertebrates groups (amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals). Furthermore, it indicates the role of natural vegetation remnants on preservation of the endemic diversity under climate change scenarios, and proposes conservation priorities. Amphibians and reptiles are mainly influenced by the Caatingas slight climatic variability, while birds and mammals are directed by environmental energy acting in the organism metabolism and trophic chain ways, respectively. Considering only the endemics, it was found that the current climate, together with quaternaries processes of vicariancy and geometrics constraints, are plausible and parsimonious explanations for diversity. In terms of conservation, our analyses reveal that the Caatingas current natural vegetation remnants will play a refuge role for the endemics diversity, under climate change scenarios, and the priority areas for conservation in the future are surrogate areas to represent its current biodiversity. Concluding, it was found that climate is an important feature that drives Caatinga biodiversity and, under climate changes, the current natural vegetation remnants are extremely important to preserve its biodiversity, being necessary to implement a conservation agenda to minimize the reserves conservation implementation costs and concomitantly assure the biodiversity persistence.